Man Was Able to Infiltrate White House After Fence Sensors Were Removed

As more information has emerged regarding the March 10 fence-jumping incident at the White House, it has become increasingly clear that security protocols are in dire need of being reviewed — and somebody probably needs to be fired.

According to CNN, 26-year-old intruder Jonathan Tran was able to scale at least three separate fences and reportedly wandered casually around the White House grounds for roughly 17 minutes before Secret Service personnel finally discovered and detained him.

Though agents were said to be angry and disappointed by the breach of White House security, it turned out that it was changes made by the agency itself that allowed this incident to happen as it did.

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The Washington Examiner reported that the Secret Service had removed special sensors from one of the sections of fencing separating the Treasury Department building from the east side of the White House grounds, the second of three fences jumped by Tran. The other two fences still had the sensors mounted on them.

The sensors were said to have been moved from the fence due to too many false alarms triggered by birds and squirrels, as well as the fact that the height of the fence had been raised, purportedly to prevent it from being scaled. The sensors that had been removed were shifted to other areas of the grounds and were never replaced.

Furthermore, questions have been raised as to why trained security dogs not were released to help search the grounds for the intruder after sensors were triggered when the first fence was jumped. In fact, no dogs were reported on the scene until after the man had already been detained and his backpack was being searched.

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According to TMZ, House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz has headed up the investigation of the incident and recently met with the acting director of the Secret Service as well as the secretary of Homeland Security, with the congressman’s conclusion being, “It was even worse than I thought.”

Chaffetz was able to watch surveillance video of the incident, which reportedly showed the intruder casually wandering around the supposedly secure grounds for 17 minutes, “lingering” and “hanging out” with no visible concerns, even stopping to tie his shoe or peer into windows of the White House before ultimately making it to the back door of the president’s residence.

Even though alarms had been triggered by the intruder, there seemed to be little “urgency” from the agents in response, perhaps due to the previous false alarms triggered by animals.

Chaffetz described the behavior of the agents as “lackadaisical,” saying, “Everything went wrong.”